Daily Baseball 101: Splitting the Splits

Known as “Rath” in the Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) community, he has helped run operations for two prominent daily fantasy sports startups.
Michael has taken his insider knowledge and expertise in daily fantasy sports to the content side. He was also nominated by the Fantasy Sports Writers Association for Best Baseball Series in 2011.

I've written a lot about the importance of hitting splits during this daily fantasy baseball season, and this week, I'll dig into what I call "Splitting the Splits".

This is where we look at handedness and park factors to uncover even more indicators in building successful lineups.

Let me preface the piece with a few things for clarification:

The data I used is from FanGraphs, which limits me to either using one single season or a player's entire career. All of the data used are career numbers from players who have only been with one team, which is why I purposely left out players like Albert Pujols because he played most of his career in St. Louis, so the data would be skewed. I've written enough about Lefty/Righty (L/R) and Home/Road (H/R) splits this year, so guys like Pujols and Miguel Cabrera have been covered, yet, those players don't provide much value on splits anyways because they hit everyone just about equally no matter what park.

For this article, I'm using wRC+ (weighted Runs Created Plus) as the measure.

wRC+ Top Hitters at Home vs. Left-Handed Pitching (LHP)

Giancarlo Stanton 196
Stanton is so impressive to put up a 196 in Marlins Park, which is a notorious pitcher's park. This really points out the extreme value you want with him in hitter's parks on the road versus LHP.

Wilin Rosario 190
Rosario's value is mostly driven by the thin air at Coors Field, as you will see with Troy Tulowitzki and Nolan Arenado below. Take this trio of Rockies' hitters at home versus weaker LHP.

Yasiel Puig 179
While the sample size on Puig is not huge, we still have enough to see that he is an elite bat, even against RHP at home (pitchers' park).

Paul Goldschmidt 176
Taking advantage of the huge park factor at home for right-handed batters (RHB), Goldy is a must play at 1B when he is in Chase Field versus weaker LHP. Obviously, with him out for the season with a broken hand, this is more of something to keep in mind for next season.

Corey Dickerson 194
It's a small sample size, but the Coors Field factor is a bonus, and you can look to get him in your lineup with Justin Morneau (who I had to leave out of this due to park change) and Carlos Gonzalez (if the guy is ever healthy).

Yasiel Puig 174
Puig has mashed at home regardless of who the pitcher is.

Mike Trout 167
It doesn't usually matter who Trout faces, if it's a righty or lefty, but you want to pick your spots when using him because he is always a top-five priced hitter.

David Ortiz 167
Big Papi destroys left-handers in Fenway and can wrap homers around that short porch in right field at Fenway. I've noticed he especially loves to light up extreme fly ball pitchers.

Jordy Mercer 221
Who would have thought that this guy has the highest wRC+ on this entire list? It's not the biggest of sample sizes, but it's enough to stand up and warrant using him versus weaker LHP with the other Pirates mentioned above.

Buster Posey 188
While there aren't a ton of hitter's parks in the National League, getting Posey outside of his home park in San Francisco is key when using him in daily fantasy baseball against weaker LHP.

Scott Van Slyke 168
Van Slyke is a specialist that usually takes Andre Ethier's or Adrian Gonzalez's spot in the order when a lefty is on the mound. He's another nice, cheap guy to use whenever he is in the lineup.